I Have Cancer But Cancer Doesn’t Have Me

The level of cancer in my body has fallen again. The hormones I’m taking are still killing off cancer cells.

Today I saw a new members of my oncologist’s team. It was all I could do not to start dancing around her office. Although who knows—she might have danced with me. She looked amazed when she checked the results of my blood test.

On our way out, Chris and I ran into a few fellow-travellers who said they liked my lucky short—i.e., the one that says, I’m Making Cancer My Bitch. I love my lucky shirt.

I’m sorry, I’m not very erudite at the moment. I’m busy rubbing moisturiser on my face and hands, drinking liquids, and celebrating the fact that when life gives you lemons, sometimes it also throws in a few green bananas.

Green bananas for everybody! (I’m not buying; sorry. But I would if I could.)

Suddenly, It’s February 2018, And I’m Not Dead Yet

No, I didn’t sleep through the holidays—-quite the opposite. In the spirit of ‘I can’t die—-I’m booked!’ I took on a project that unexpectedly doubled in size.

For a while, I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone that I was writing the novelisation for the upcoming movie Alita Battle Angel for Titan Books. But then Titan listed the books on Amazon for pre-order, so the cyborg cat is out of the cyborg bag. Originally, the movie was scheduled for release in July of this year. Fox has since pushed it back to December. So you have plenty of time to pre-order copies for Christmas presents. 😉

Since October, I’ve been living in a reimagined version of the Battle Angel Alita manga. When I got the assignment, I was thrilled because, wonder of wonders, I was already familiar with the material. My fabulous son read the manga when he was a kid, which meant I had read the manga—-I read everything he read, so I would know what my fabulous son was feeding into his fabulous brain. (When he was growing up, his father and I took him to a bookstore every weekend and we told him he could have any book he wanted. I think that worked out well.)

So I already knew Alita and I was even happier to discover that Amazon had a lot of the manga in electronic form. Yes, I know many people object to electronic versions of books and graphic novels. But these are people who, unlike me, are not cursed with the power to make things disappear. The big attraction of ebooks for me is, not only do I never lose them, I never lose my place in them, either. Plus, I can look up words by touching them and highlight significant passages without having the highlighter leak through to the next page.

Anyway, I had a great time with Alita Battle Angel and shortly after I finished the submission draft of the novelisation, my editor Ella contacted me to say the original author writing the prequel, Yvonne Navarro, had had to bow out, and would I be interested in taking it on, despite the shorter deadline? I most certainly was interested. Fortunately, Yvonne had written a detailed outline already approved by the studio. Thanks, Yvonne!

The prequel is called Iron City, and you have lots of time to pre-order copies along with Alita Battle Angel for Christmas presents.

And that’s where I’ve been—about six hundred years in the future, give or take. Pretty good, considering I’ve just begun my second year of borrowed time. In between, I’ve also made a lot of progress on the next draft of the sushi novel—-working title: See You When You Get There.)

Last day to buy green bananas was 6 February; my oncology appointment is next week. I have to get a blood test today or tomorrow. I’ve begun feeling the usual mild anxiety—-but this time, the anxiety has come much later than usual. I’ve actually been too busy to remember I have terminal cancer.

But then, I’ve always been a bit absentminded anyway…;-)